After being named as Senator Obama’s VP choice, Joe Biden was interviewed by the Scranton Times and praised two Scranton guys as being among the best reasons to be glad you were raised in Scranton.For that story/interview click this:

Some evangelical Christians prayed that it would rain just as Senator Obama was going to start his speech.Their prayers were in vain.BUTThere was chatter on theInternets on Friday indicating that the Republicans were thinking of postponing there convention if it looked like a hurricane would be hitting Louisiana during the week starting on Labor Day.Is God taking sides in the election process?

ATTENTION GETTER

How can Senator McCain possibly steal the spotlight from the Democrats?The Democratic National Convention should be the center of interest for the newspapers, newsmagazines, and Sunday talk shows on the Labor Day Weekend.On the Friday before the Labor Day weekend, Senator McCain is supposed to name his VP choice.How can he possibly get more news coverage with a routine announcement?Do you think the political pundits would have a cow for all of the Labor Day weekend, if McCain names Dick Cheney?

VP UPDATE

As it turns out, Cheney didn’t get picked.Senator McCain picked the governor of Alaska and, it seems to me, she could be a twin for NBC’s Tina Fey who stars in 30 Rock and was featured on Saturday Night Live in previous seasons.Think SNL will beg her to come back if the Alaska lady does become VP?By Friday night, folks like Access Hollywood were already showing photos of Fey and Gov. Palin.Is it ironic that he announced his choice on the day before National Toasted Marshmallows day?

JUST ONE MORE WAR?

President Bush may be able to get the world to take one more step toward the Armageddon predicted in the Bible, if he has to use threats to get Russia out of Georgia.

His “hole card” up until the new Inauguration will always be the possibility that he has to nuke the Iranian nuclear research facilities.If starting the end of time as predicted in the Bible really is George W. Bush’s God-given mission in life, his past style indicates he isn’t going to change his mind now just to gain a few extra donations to his Presidential Library fund.Buckle your seatbelts, boys, it’s going to be a bumpy ride for the next six months.

FLIP-FLOP

For you fans of logic, Bush the baffler is at it again.When folks fret that there are vast numbers of Iraqis being killed by the invasion and the aftermath, the good Bushies dismiss the concern as irrelevant.We have heard one strong Bush supporter use the old superior race card and offer the excuse that the inhabitants of Iraq are animals who practice terrorism and killing them is no big deal.But.When there is talk of a troop pull-out the line of reasoning is that such a move would precipitate a blood bath and hence for humanitarian concern reasons, it must not be contemplated let alone enacted.So which is it?They don’t count or they are of vital concern?

PUMAS

If the cable talking heads were in consternation mode over the possibility that Hilary’s supporters were going to stage a revolt in her name, and when things began to happen, the PUMA’s disappeared, that brings up a question about the qualifications needed for these talkers to call themselves “journalists.”If they had something like “reliable source” or some other “off the record comment” by somebody, then it might squeak by as “news” but with the old What-the-Fox-News ploy of using a vague “some people say” dodge, it is reduced to the level of camouflaged propaganda and a thinly veiled attempt to manipulate events with an item they want to become a self-fulfilling prophesy rather than anything that can genuinely be called journalism.

EDWARD R. MURROW vs. WHAT-THE-FOX-NEWS

The What-the-Fox-News gag is borrowed from Steph and the Mooks in the Morning.If America doesn’t cherish real journalism, it will lose it.If America loses its free press, it won’t remain a democracy for very long after that.Oh well, as my Republican fiends always say:“all good things must come to an end.”

GEORGIA

Wouldn’t Eddie Haskell think that the way Bushes eggs countries and groups into a battle implying that they will send help if the instigators can’t handle it, and then they back off with a lame “I’d love to help you – but . . .” excuse, when the fighting does start, is a hilarious practical joke?It works every time.Wouldn’t you’d think that small, vulnerable groups of people who hear “dares” from George H. W. Bush or his son, would eventually catch on to the joke?Unfortunately when Jr. and his pals suckered Georgia into the gambit, the oil companies got rooked out of a pipeline they were coveting.What if they make George Bush keep what the Georgians thought was a commitment to back them on the play?Isn’t there a Bush family joke that advises that wars are just like sex, drugs, and money because you can never have enough?

AFGHANISTAN

All the tactics that made Iraq get worse are now being imported into the war in Afghanistan, and guess what?Things seem to be deteriorating the same way they did in Iraq.How ‘bout dat for a co-inky-dink?

THE MISSING RIFLE DETAILS

A guy was arrested in Denver with a rifle with a scope sight on it.Assassination talk followed.There was one story that said it was a .22-250 rifle.On gun web sites such a weapon is called a varmint gun.Wouldn’t a serious shooter choose something with a bit more range?Something like a .50 caliber rifle that will deliver a kill shot at 2000 yards?Or, at the very least, a Mannlicker-Carcano rifle?You wouldn’t get a varmint gun into the stadium and so the choice of a .22-250 seems just a tad inept because once you start considering the logistics of a shot from outside the stadium, the choosing of a .22-250 seems to make your choice dwindle to the effectiveness level of a pea-shooter.

If you want to step inside the head of a sniper, then read the novels of Stephen Hunter and start with “Point of Impact.”

WHO WASN’T THERE?

On that fateful day in Dallas, wasn’t Richard Nixon in town?Records indicate George H. W. Bush was there.E. Howard Hunt was reportedly seen in photos taken at Dealy Plaza and there are rumors that “The Blond Ghost” was also seen in one of the photos taken at Dealy Plaza.

QUOTE

It’s difficult to think of Alaska without thinking of Jack London.Here is one of his most often quoted sayings:““I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

Now, the disk jockey will play Johnny Horton’s “North to Alaska” and we will mush out of here.Have a “slog on to <a href = http://www.iditarod.com/>Iditarod</a>” type week.You can hear it on Youtube.

If the Republicans have helped manipulate the Democratic selection of a candidate because they believed that Senator Obama would be easier to defeat than Senator Clint, it raises an interesting question:

How many Republicans will die the day after the election of stroke, aneurysm, or heart attack, if Senator Obama wins and the Bush legacy is that he greased the skids for the election of America’s first black President?

This issue of the Promobabble Report is being written up on Friday night and there has been no announcement yet as to who will be Senator Obama’s selection for the VP candidate.Joe Biden has been a Senator for a good number of years and that by itself (plus the fact that he is from Scranton!) is good enough to deserve a tribute issue.The fact that he is a good friend of a member of the Promobabble Patrol (SPHS ’61 squad) is just a co-inky-dink.

HOW MANY HOMES DO YOU OWN?

“You know in all the excitement, I kinda lost track.Was it five or was it six?Now . . .”Sorry, we were getting the John McCain questions and the Dirty Harry answers mixed up there.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NIMROD NEWS GUY!

Rev. Dan, who does the nimrod news on FM station KX:LU every Saturday at 5 a.m. Pacific Time, will be celebrating his birthday during this weekend’s broadcast.

THE MOVE

The WLJ Industries World Headquarters Relocation Project is moving along and consequently it may happen that members of the Promobabble Patrol may suddenly find that the phone number for the Home Office is no longer functional.It may come to pass that for a time being the Promobabble Report may be the only communication that Patrol members receive for awhile.If the sojourn beyond the Mar Vista area is added to the plans to go on an extended exploration of Australia, then the time for being incommunicado may last from this coming Labor Day until about Easter.(“A little while and you shall not see me, and again a little while and you shall.”)

MOVING ON UP

We’ve been invited to cross post our columns on the OpEdNews website.So look for some new links to those items (next issue of Promobabble, perhaps?)

As part of the move, the twenty some year old TV set has been donated to the Salvation Army, so my grasp of contemporary culture will diminish a bit for the foreseeable future.

VP PICKS

As we see it on Monday night, August 16, 2008, the VP choices will be:Biden for the Dems and (hold on to your hats!) Dick Cheney for the Republicans!

CLASSIC COUNTRY MUSIC

For those who like country music, we will run a plug for the program heard on KKGO FM on Sunday nights from 9 p.m. to midnight in the Pacific Time Zone.They play classic country for three hours with an occasional novelty tune thrown in for a change-up.It’s available online at gocountry105.com so that folks in Germany or China can tune in after they figure out the time shift.Pacific is -5 for GMT, so if you are in the plus column, you should be able to figure this out.When will universal GMT time-stamping become more prevalent?Update:on Friday morning we passed this information along to a new acquaintance at the local doughnut shop and, since he is from Texas, he seemed very interested in this bit of information.Now if there was only some way that we can get that information to the members of the armed forces in Iraq, it would give them some good Monday morning listening for their drive time hours, if they can listen via the Internets.

JAS PHOTO TEAM

The JAS photo team was working on a secret project this week and we can’t tell you about that until later in September, but we can tell you to check out the photos of the cute little electric car we found on Main Street in Santa Monica.Click this link:

Why are the Chinese gymnasts going to be disqualified for being too young?Wouldn’t being the best in the world be even more impressive if they were younger than 16?Does being under 16 give gymnasts some advantage in the competition?

DO IT YOURSELF

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Page 8 column, earlier this week, brought up an old Australian urban legend.According to the story, when the first Holden cars were manufactured in the late forties, the mechanically minded guys discovered that it was cheaper to buy all the parts and assemble the car themselves rather than buying one fresh from the factory.According to the legend, when the corporate guys learned about that they jacked up the parts prices so that it became cheaper to buy one in the new car dealer showroom.

QUOTE

From an apology for idlers, by Robert Louis Stevenson:“Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.”

SONG

What the heck is the name of that Johnny Cash song about putting together a Cadillac from pieces the guy brought home from work?It’s called “One Piece at a Time.” To see/hear it click here: